“I know. I wish for nothing but your comfort, but more than that…”
Steam gathered in his throat, choking him. “I do not wish to lose you again.”
He knew it was disgusting, but he could not stop the molt.
He turned his back so she would not have to see the way his scales fell away.
“Fenny, don’t… don’t do this. Look at me.”
Suddenly, she was on her feet, at his back, turning him to face her. She tugged on his neck, pulling him down so she could wrap her arms around him the way he had seen hybrid mothers hold their crying children.
“We’ve been through this,” she reminded him. “So many times.”
998.
“It never becomes any easier. I find I only love you more each cycle.”
“Me, too,” she agreed with complete confidence, even though her memory was wiped when her new life began. Unlike theirs.
“That’s why we’ve got to take what we can get. Nine months 999 times. That’s almost 1,000 years we’ve been in love, babe.”
Dorie’s math was, as usual—with the notable exception of the physicist—not accurate.
More often than not, they had been denied the privilege of nine entire moon cycles with her. Nor did she understand that 1,000 years to a drakkon was but a wingbeat.
Still, she was right.
“I love you,” he breathed out. “More than my flame can hold.”
“In every lifetime?” she asked with a hopeful note in her voice.
Even though she already knew the answer.
“In every single lifetime,” he vowed. “I will never stop.”
The eye water that she expelled for various reasons appeared again, even though her entire being burned yellow with her love.
“Well, if you love me, I guess I can try this squat method of Diarmuid’s one more time.”
“I will hold you steady.” He took her by her hands and led her toward the nest. “We will do it together.”
The gratitude she’d bade him to feel for what little time he had with her lit up his chest. Save for a clawful of cycles, Dorie had died in his arms.
She would do so again.
And perhaps she, too, felt the futility of Upsilon’s exercise.
Even as she lowered into Upsilon’s recommend squat, she said, “Promise you’ll bring me back. I know it hurts, but don’t doanything stupid, like not looping me back around to make sure I get to love you again.”
“Treasure…” He brought her hand up to his mouth and licked it, savoring the salt on her skin. “You have my word.”
She twisted her lips and rolled her eyes. “Okay, you two, you can come back in.”
Not even a wingbeat later, Omicron’s and Upsilon’s footsteps sounded on the fur path they’d laid down so her sensitive feet might stay warm.
She’d called both variants back in, making it unnecessary for Fenrir Prime to break his promise.
“We give you great thanks, Reverence,” Upsilon said. He fell to his knees beside where she leaned against Fenrir Prime in her awkward squat.
